Not trying to be a prolific poster, but…

Not trying to be a prolific poster, but I just have to share this; we were in receipt of a letter from our mortgage company yesterday. It said to call them, which I did just moments ago. They said that since our escrow was so high, we had several thousand in it, and my last payment was far less than that, they tapped the escrow for the last payment and our mortgage is done!

We will be getting a letter from them confirming this as well as the county, the county will also be notified that the mortgage company will no longer be handling the taxes and to send the tax bill to us directly. Also when we get the paperwork from the county, we will be contacting our insurance company and informing them of the same actions so they can bill us directly.

The remaining escrow will come to us in a check that we will deposit in a new account to cover these future bills.

So it’s done, Finally!

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Author: Gerry D

I'm from Pensyltucky. Can trace my ancestry directly to whom the present day national anthem of Poland is written about. Presently repair slot machines at a casino.
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13 thoughts on “Not trying to be a prolific poster, but…”

In the 1960s Mom and Dad made their final mortgage payment. Dad brought the letter home from his office and conducted a ceremonial reading at the supper table. Then he hung the mortgage release formal statement, when that came, on the wall for a while so we could all savor it directly for a while. That made an impression.

In the 1960s Mom and Dad made their final mortgage payment. Dad brought the letter home from his office and conducted a ceremonial reading at the supper table. Then he hung the mortgage release formal statement, when that came, on the wall for a while so we could all savor it directly for a while. That made an impression.

Isn’t it a great feeling to no longer be a slave to the bank and become able to devote substantially all your slavery efforts to metastatic government and regulation ( e.g., the cellphone companies are forbidden by law to label about 25% of your bill as “taxes,” which, of course, they really are) at all levels? Stealth tax technology is light years ahead of stealth aviation.

Congrats. I’m going to zero out my mortgage since it many no longer be advantageous to itemize in California and since interest rates remain low. I’d been keeping the mortgage as an inflation hedge but the new tax law changed the dynamic.

As for escrow, never let the bank handle your property taxes. If they screw up, it’s on you; the government looks upon you as the debtor. The bank is merely doing you a ‘favor’ by paying them.

As for escrow, never let the bank handle your property taxes. If they screw up, it’s on you; the government looks upon you as the debtor. The bank is merely doing you a ‘favor’ by paying them.

Many mortgages won’t allow you to take personal control of tax and insurance payments until you have achieved 20 % equity. It is usually a simple matter to eliminate the escrow if you do have over 20 % equity in the house.

Also, new home buyers usually start with ten percent down or less, and end up with a “PMI” payment. PMI stands for private mortgage insurance, and it is a racket. It does not insure the mortgagee for anything. It insures that the bank will make a profit on the loan.

Once you achieve 20 % equity, the requirement to maintain PMI usually goes away. But they won’t stop collecting it unless you tell them to stop the PMI. So, make sure that you have not messed up by paying for PMI for years after you could have stopped.

Welcome to the club! After I got married, hubby contributed to the house account, and I paid off my 15-year mortgage in 13.5 years. No longer a slave to the mortgage company, you remain a slave to the various levels of government who extract property taxes. Now, you get to find out every year exactly how high those taxes are-you could almost ignore them when the bank was paying. And when the economy is bad and housing values go down, unless you intend to sell, you don’t worry about that-just be happy that your taxes go down, too.

I tried to get both sons interested in banking as a career. Neither one was interested. But if I had understood that you could get into a business where you could insure that you would always make a profit, I would have become a banker.